Praise for Justin Fields from Critical Source
It's tough to please everyone.
Until Sunday, only the very top decision makers for the Bears had weighed in with an opinion on how Justin Fields has looked in the offseason.
Both GM Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus gave glowing testimony to their second-year quarterback's ability or leadership. The leadership probably counts for more until they actually see him running their offense in the regular season.
Now it's offensive coordinator Luke Getsy doing the same.
Considering how closely tied the quarterback and the O.C. must be, when he play-caller is giving up glowing praise there's little reason to believe compliments are merely camoflage for secret misgivings someone has about Fields, as some rumor mongers on social media have suggested.
"I've been super impressed with him," Getsy said after the end of rookie minicamp. "I really have. There's no one in this building that works harder than him. There's no one that cares more than him.
"We're off to a great start. He's really accepted this challenge. We're asking a lot of him to learn a lot of new things. He's been a pleasure to work with."
It coincides with Poles' comments earlier in the week to Mully & Haugh on WSCR.
"Yeah, my level of belief is sky high and the one thing you can tell is the way this guy is moving around the building right now and he's locked on," Poles told WSCR. "He's focused and he wants to be great. He's a first-and-last-out type guy. Not even type, he is that guy. And he's pulling this team together.
"He's locked in with Luke. It's really cool to see."
Getsy views this relationship being built with his QB as critical.
"I was raised on that—that the play-caller and the quarterback have to have a great relationship, and that's important," Getsy said. "We have to be on the same page, always. That's where I've felt like he's grown is he's communicating with me so well now things that he's feeling, things that he sees. And so that part of it has just been tremendous for a young guy to be able to do that.
"These three or four months that we've been together, it's been a lot of fun."
That all seems to run contrary to the suggestions by some analysts claiming Fields wasn't Poles' guy or this regime's guy. Those comments almost seem comical because so little has been done yet. It's only been those three or four months.
In fact, they hadn't even begun to get to work when some statements of this kind came up, citing no actual sources, named or otherwise.
"We're working though this thing step by step," Getsy said. "You know, we're making sure that we master. In order to be able to master our craft we have to master each step. So we're just, we're staying on track.
"I think he's, if anything, ahead of pace and I'm real excited to see by the end of this thing if we're just going to keep knocking out these steps. That's all."
It's the magical three-word phrase most Bears fans long to hear with Fields in this new offense: "ahead of pace."
Sure, it really doesn't mean too much at this time of year when the schedule is three or four days from being released, all the veteran work has been voluntary and they still have three weeks of voluntary work to go before getting to mandatory mid-June minicamp.
It's all they have to go on though.
So anticipate plenty of analysts pointing out Getsy merely said Fields was "ahead of pace," and not "way ahead of pace," and that Poles has't begun talking about a contract extension for Fields yet. As a result, the narrative will still be Fields hasn't impressed them.
With some people, there is no winning.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
